The present disclosure relates generally to recycling worn rail, and more particularly to a process for recycling rail which reduces the amount of resources needed to recycle the rail while maintaining or improving the quality of the recycled rail and reducing the need to scrap portions of the rail.
It is common practice to recycle worn rail, such as worn railroad rail, into a variety of products such as t-post, rebar, angles, etc. by subjecting the rail to rolling operations. Rolling operations generally include heating of the rail to a plastic state and deforming of the rail into a generally uniform shape having a reduced cross-sectional area relative to the original worn rail.
As can be appreciated, rail typically does not take an easily workable shape such as a square, circle, or rectangle. Rather, most rail takes a unitary T-like shape to include a lower portion, a web portion, and an upper portion. Recycling such rail can be problematic due to the formation of structurally-deficient laps or seams that result from rolling rail having difficult geometric orientations. As such, it is often necessary to divide the rail into workable sections in a process known as slitting.
In the past, slitting has involved forming multiple slits in the rail to separate the lower portion, the web portion, and the upper portion of the rail prior to rolling. Oftentimes, the web portion of the rail will include holes or other attachment means to accommodate laying of the rail. Thus, the portions of the rail that include these holes need to be scrapped prior to the remainder of the rail undergoing deformation processes because deformation of porous portions of rail can lead to a structurally deficient finished product.
After scrapping the unusable portion of the rail, the lower, upper, and web portions of the rail are passed down separate deformation lines, often referred to as mill pass lines, during which each portion is subjected to rolling operations. Thus, multiple mill pass lines are required in order to accommodate passage of the lower, upper, and web portions of the rail during such rolling operations. Each mill pass line requires a considerable amount of equipment including mill stands, conveyors, guiding systems, cooling beds, finishing shears, bundling systems, etc. Furthermore, each mill pass line requires employees to supervise the rolling operations. As can be appreciated, the cost of running multiple mill pass lines during the recycling of worn rail can be economically burdensome due to the amount of equipment and number of employees needed for such operations.
Therefore, what is needed is a rail recycling process that reduces the number of mill pass lines while maintaining or improving the quality of the recycled rail and reducing the need to scrap portions of the rail.